Posts Tagged ‘Actions’

(Campaign Actions are suggestions we make every fortnight for steps you can take – in addition to spreading the No To Rape message online – to help the effort for change. Previous Campaign Actions: [1] and [2].)

The current No To Rape Campaign Action is:

Put up our poster. You can find a simple, black-and-white A4-sized poster in the Resources column of the Promote section of our website. Print it out on ordinary paper and put it up on the notice boards of places you go to – like your office, your campus or your place of worship. Get permission from your favourite shop or eating place to put it up there too!

Remember our Campaign Actions? Every fortnight, we post a new suggestion for something you can do to be even more effective at promoting the No To Rape message. Two weeks ago we asked you to write to your MP.

The current No To Rape Campaign Action is:

Write to the press. We suggest writing to any publication you read regularly, whether it’s a newspaper like The Straits Times, Today, Lianhe Zaobao, Berita Harian, Tamil Murasu, or The Business Times; or a magazine; or a newsletter for your school or workplace or club or association.

Tell them that you think marital immunity for rape should be abolished, and why.

Your letter will have more impact if you use your own words. Feel free to use the FAQ the Resources in the Promote section for information or ideas.

If you’re not sure what to say, here are a few possibilities:

- At the moment, except in limited circumstances, a man who forces sex upon his wife cannot be charged for rape. This is wrong and should change because rape is violence, and spousal violence is not acceptable.

- In August is the 10th anniversary of the hearing for PP v N, a case where a man tied his wife up, gagged her and forced intercourse upon her. He could not be charged for rape. A decade later, even with changes to the law in 2007, the result would be the same.

- Marital rape happens. Signatories on the No To Rape petition have spoken of their personal experiences as victims, or their work with victims.

Volunteer: Would you like to volunteer for No To Rape and help abolish marital immunity for rape? We’ve uploaded a Volunteering Form which you should download and return to us by email.

Articles: More news articles on marital rape are available in the right-hand column.

Blogs: We’ve updated the list of blogs that link to us. Thank you all for your support! Honourable mentions to Headspace for some really interesting excerpts from an academic article on marital rape, and Mathia Lee for the lively discussion in the comments.

As No To Rape enters its third week, more than 800 people have signed the petition to show their support for the abolition of marital immunity for rape. With your help in spreading the message, that number continues to grow.

But there is even more we can do to create change. Every two weeks, we’ll post a Campaign Action you can take to be even more effective at promoting the No To Rape message.

The current No To Rape Campaign Action is:

Write to your MP: Please write directly to your Member of Parliament and tell them that you think forced sex should always be treated as rape.

Confused about how to do this? Check out the Promote section of the site. You’ll find a link to the Parliament website, where you can get snail mail or email details for your MP by entering your street name.

You can also access our Model Letter to an MP – feel free to use this as it is, or as a source of ideas. Your letter will probably have more impact if it is in your own words.

The more letters MPs receive, from as many different people as possible, the clearer it will be to them that Singaporeans and PRs do not support marital immunity for rape.

Please let us know at NoToRape@gmail.com if you receive any responses from your MP. The more knowledge we share, the more effectively we can work.

The Petition is the core of this campaign, but we seek to equip everyone with additional tools to take a stand against sexual violence within marriage. Don’t forget to sign up to our mailer (you can do so here) to receive regular updates on other actions you can take to end marital immunity for rape.

For now, thank you for spreading the word – we’ve seen many of you hard at work on emails, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, and it’s making a huge difference.

Besides online sharing, you can take offline action too. The Promote section of our website contains all kinds of tools to help you spread the word – including ready-made leaflets in poster and flyer sizes, and an Activist Toolkit containing suggestions and resources for creating change.

We’ve also updated the Promote section to include news articles on marital immunity for rape, correspondence with MPs and the civil service on the subject, and links to blogs who’ve been kind enough to share the No To Rape message – some of them have added really powerful thoughts of their own. Do check it out.

p.s. Don’t forget that the Petition comes in Bahasa Melayu and Chinese translations so you can share the word with those who aren’t as comfortable with English! We are working on a Tamil translation too and will let you know when that’s ready.

Thank you to everyone who has signed this petition, Tweeted about it, posted it on Facebook, linked on your blog, or otherwise spread the word. With your kind help, this petition has got off to a good start since its launch, collecting more than 200 signatures in 3 days.

The good news is, we can do even better! If you have a blog or website, please write about our campaign, and link to us using the blog badges found in the Promote section of our site.

The more people we reach, the more effectively we can speak, together, against sexual violence of every kind. If your blog informs even one person about the petition, and she tells her sister, who tells her colleague, who tells two friends, that’s five more signatures on the petition – all because you took 20 seconds to post a blog badge! Every act makes a real difference. Please blog against marital immunity for rape today.